hand in hand
by OmNomNomAttack
Summary: Not everything comes up roses when you realise you're a mutant. In fact, it's usually the opposite. Julia McAdams managed to really draw the short straw, unable to have any physical contact and asked to be the babysitter for a speedy criminal in her spare time - actually, he's not all bad. Warnings: Angst, violence. Pairings: Pietro Maximoff/Original Character *SET AFTER DOFP*
1. Chapter 1

"Julia, I would appreciate it if you actually pay attention to my lesson instead of thinking of the pie you had not twenty minutes ago." Professor Xavier's voice cut through Julia's thoughts like a knife and she could feel the blood rush to her cheeks.

"Sorry, Professor." She mumbled. Charles blinked slowly at her, before returning to his lecture. There was a collective laugh from around the room as Julia thumped her head onto her desk and listened to Xavier's English accent explain the basic principles behind mutations.

"Mutation is the key to our genetic evolution. It took us from the single celled organisms to the dominant species of reproductive life on this Earth…" The class listened placidly, as they usually did, writing down the necessary information for the fabled test that all the teachers seem to always be threatening them with.

"Charles-" The lecture stopped abruptly and Julia looked up, suddenly, looking from the professor to the door, where Hank McCoy stood. She grinned at him and he grinned back, before his gaze locked once more with Charles'. The Professor scowled, dismissing the class and gesturing for Hank to come in. Julia stuffed her notebook into her bag and lifted her headphones from around her neck, placing one over each ear and making her way into the halls. She was used to the wide berth the other students gave her, not because she was weird, it was rather that her mutation made it like that. She had a sort of bubble, circle of protection: no-one could get into it, she couldn't leave and it changed as she did. (she had injured too many students by reaching out beside them and accidentally striking them with her shield) The last person she had hugged was her mother, before she was forced off of her daughter by the shield's sudden arrival. There was a few perk, however, she was impervious to rain (and also showers, so she bathed), as well as the fact that all sharp objects melted into puddles at the edge of her shield. That isn't to say that she was impervious to everything: mental attacks were her weakness.

_Julia_, as if almost case and point, Professor Xavier's voice rings clear as a bell through her head, _I would like to speak to you back in the classroom, please._ Without hesitating, Julia turned on her heel, walking through the crowd that parted before her, to much resentment and angry grumblings, though her classmates were now quite used to it. Hank smiled slightly at her, almost apologetically and the scowl that the professor had been wearing earlier seemed somehow more intense.

"Hey, Julia." Hank greeted her. The two became good friends over their mutual dislike for their mutations. He offered her some of the drug that turns off his physical mutation but whenever he went to hand her the needle, it melted onto the ground before them.

"Hey." She smiled back at him, trying not to think about whatever Professor Xavier had asked her here for. Hopefully it wasn't anything bad.

"Unfortunately it is." Xavier answered her and Julia swallowed hard, finally turning her attention to her professor. "We have a new student coming to our school -" Julia held up her hand, frowning to herself.

"There is a multitude of students whose powers could help a new, even unruly student. I'm not a welcoming committee, I can't shake hands." She told them and Xavier's bitter smile told her she had missed the mark entirely. "Oh…"

"He's a pain in the ass." Julia blinked rapidly and Hank nudged the professor. "That being said, its very difficult to control him. Simply getting him to attend seems like a miracle, but I also believe that his sister had a hand in it. She's very nice, really, sweet girl. Back to Pietro." Xavier halted for a moment, sighing, "Yes, I have tried stopping him with my powers once, however he also gave me motion sickness. The reason I've called you here is that, if anything, he needs a physical block. Barely anything can stop him but I believe you can - oh dear God." Professor Xavier buried his head in his hands. "He's already here. Of course he is. Hank, you and Julia go greet him, take him to his room and Julia, you keep him there until I get there. I need to talk to him." Julia looked dubiously at Hank, who shrugged, nodding towards the door. The two of them exited, walking to the front of the school, Hank staying three feet from Julia, which is the closest her mutation allowed anybody.

"So, Pietro? Who is this guy?" She asked Hank, who shrugged.

"He's really not as awful as Charles makes him out to be." Hank paused as they rounded a corner, "He did break into the pentagon to help us break out Magneto… And he's a bit of a kleptomaniac." He shrugged, "But that's just abuse of his powers, he got one of the good ones." He said, almost quietly, to himself. Julia snorted and made a noise of agreement.

"Yeah, I guess I'm just lucky." There was a voice beside Hank and Julia made a startled noise. A silver-haired teen with old-fashioned flying goggles on his eyes was walking beside them, well, was. Another perk of Julia's mutation was that if she felt intense emotions, such as shock or surprise, the diameter of her shield increased by a few feet, and Hank was knocked into the boy's side. "Hey, what was that for?" The guy asked, frowning. Julia swallowed quickly, watching her feet, her only thoughts trained on how she was a barricade, not a welcoming party.

"Sorry, sometimes when Julia's shocked, she-" Hank felt himself being knocked even further to the side as Julia stuck out her hand. The party of people stopped and Hank got up, brushing himself off and rolling his eyes at Julia. Julia rolled her own brown eyes and adjusted her stride to slip behind the two boys. "Julia, this is Pietro." Hank said as they walked. Julia waved at him from where the silver-haired boy walked beside Hank. I_t didn't suit him_, she thought, _walking so slowly. He looked uneasy, like it was taking concentration to simply walk like a human_.

"So, why can't I get to you?" Pietro asked, his words obviously directed at her, no matter how fast he talked. "Its making me edgy." Julia snorted, not completely ignoring his question, but not answering it, either. Hank rolled his eyes as Pietro seemed to appear behind Julia. "Come on, is it your mutation? Is that why you hit tall, dark and furry when he went to explain it?" Hank made a noise in the back of his throat and Julia laughs, nodding slightly, though it seemed to be enough for Pietro. As they rounded a final corner, they came to a stop in front of a door, one Julia knew well as it was the door opposite her own dorm room door. She cast a despairing look at Hank who pointedly looked away.

"This is your new home, Pietro." Hank said, gesturing him in. Pietro zipped in, eyes wide. Hank followed him in and Julia stood in the doorway, slouching against the frame.

"Cool! So I can do basically anything in here?" Pietro asked, looking through the windows to the grounds for a moment. It looked as though he wanted to go down and explore the grounds himself but he found himself stopped short by Julia's shield. "Oh." He muttered, reaching out as far as he could, but came up against what seemed like a tangible wall. Pietro's eyes lit up as he moved his hands across the surface of the shield, trying to see if there was a chink in her armour as it was. "That's why you're here. I thought it was weird a student who can't shake hands would a be a welcoming party.

"No, I'm just a barricade." Julia's eyes were trained on the ground, her voice bitter as she missed Hank's sympathetic look, as well as Pietro's amused look as the shield expanded beneath his hands, pushing him back.

"Julia, you're much more than that." Professor Xavier's voice was clear as he spoke and Julia spun around, hearing Pietro's yelp of surprise as the shield snapped back to its original size. Xavier smiled pleasantly. "I can hold him for a minute or so without being sick, please move out of the way and then reclaim your position." He told her. Julia nodded solemnly, stepping out of his way. No-one raced past her and Xavier wheeled himself into the room. She saw Xavier's falter and stepped in behind him, forcing him completely into the room and keeping Pietro in there also, as he tried to escape. "I may have misspoke." Xavier laughed softly and he mentally asked Julia if she could corner Pietro so Hank could get him a glass of water. Julia nodded, her temper flaring within herself to give her a few extra feet. Pietro stood like a sullen child in the corner as Hank exited.

"Not fair, baric_-ugh_!" Julia narrowed her eyes, her shield now pressing against him. He backed up against the wall, his hands on Julia's shield to keep a track of its size. "So, do you like being used like this, Princes-" Julia's shield pressed him close to the wall, his feet an inch or so off the ground as he tried to move his face into a more comfortable position.

"Pietro, I wouldn't." Charles' voice held a warning and Pietro's mischievous (yet slightly squished) smile had Julia narrowing her eyes. The shield retracted slightly and he thumped to the ground, bracing himself on the shield as Julia's interest was piqued. '_Julia_." Charles sighed at her childlike curiosity. "Curiosity killed the cat." He told her, seriously.

"But satisfaction brought it back." She told her professor calmly. Pietro looked up, smirking.

"Satisfaction, eh?" He said, eyebrows wiggling. It took him less than a millisecond to see Julia's eyes open in fury and then for him to be crashed into the wall so hard and fast that he left a dent. With her left hand outstretched, she morphed the shield to have a section match her hand's movements, pressing into his neck.

"I am not your barricade. I am not your princess. I am your babysitter for the next hour and then I hope to never see you again." She growled, not daring to edge closer, wary that she may accidentally crush him. He may annoy her, but she didn't wish any harm on the guy.

"Its that sort of thinking that leads me to say that you have to see him often after this." Xavier told her, smiling and thanking Hank as he entered with a glass of water. No-one offered an explanations as to why Pietro was pressed to the wall, his head tilted up at an odd angle. "Julia, release him and stand back by the door, please." Julia did as she was asked, still slightly in shock. "There is any number of students I could have picked to contain Pietro, Lucas is twelve and already can freeze people with a single touch, Nicola, a year younger than you, breathes out knockout gas.

_Thank you for reminding me just how inferior I am,_ Julia though, bitterly.

"That was not my intention. There is a specific reason I chose you to meet him, why you sleep across from him and why I didn't stop you just now." Charles told her. There was a pause and Julia watched her feet, moving her hands away from Pietro's throat, her shield snapping back into place, Pietro falling to his knees and gasping for breath. "I wanted someone with a strong moral compass, able to stop him in his tracks and, of course, anyone who annoys him is a bonus."

Julia snorted, "I don't annoy him, haven't you noticed? He annoys me." Charles blinked slowly at her and Julia looked at the ground, fiddling with her hands.

"I can't get close to you and I can't look through your stuff, which I normally would. I'm not used to walking into walls." She could hear the eye roll in Pietro's voice and she looked at him, blankly. He shrugged, "I'm being honest."

Xavier shrugged. "I needed someone that would test the both of out, keep you on your toes. Two birds, one stone… etc." He told them. There was a pause, "Muttering _'two birds, one giant, bloody boulder'_ in your mind does not make it any less true." Julia nodded sheepishly at this and sat by the door. "I want you two to try and become friends. Unless one of you is dead, try not to come to me for help. You're almost adults now and staying here is to hone your abilities and increase your independence. Ok?" Charles looked at the two of them and Julia refrained from saying anything, her jaw tightly shut, her eyes downcast.

"Yeah, sure. Sounds great." Pietro answered.

"Fine." Julia mumbled. Charles smiled, pleased with himself.

"Good. All I really wanted to talk to you about was the fact that if you break my school, I will make you pay for it." He told Pietro cheerfully. Julia stepped out, telling Xavier she was taking the rest of the day off, and quickly shut herself in her room. It was less than a minute later that she saw Pietro sprawled out on the grass of the lawn, headphones over his ears, hands behind his head. Julia felt something constrict in her chest, she knew Xavier was trying to make her have friends, but people stayed away from her - physical contact seemed the norm for friends and everyone thought she was weird. She wasn't very talkative and had a short temper, accidentally shoving people from their chairs if her temper flared in the middle of class. Her closest friends were Alex and Hank, teachers, another things that made her an oddity to the others, and Charles, a closet recluse/reluctant teacher.

This was not a good idea, she could tell. Someone would end up hurt.


	2. Chapter 2

It was about two week later and Pietro, of course, had made friends at the school immediately, his natural confidence bringing people into his life. He had been inducted into the 'popular' crowd within the first week due to his charisma and daring stunts - a group that was headed by two of the non-physical mutants that made it their mission to put Julia through hell. Emelia Rose, a pretty girl in Julia's year with the ability to make people hear voices in their head, was often seen beside Pietro, joking with him, walking to class, training with him, along with Bryce Connolly, a boy who looked like a praying mantis with the ability to manipulate water, in any form, including, water within the human body. Julia suspected that Emelia had been popular before her mutation developed (she really was stunning, statuesque blonde with impeccable taste and a foolproof way to discredit her competition) but Bryce was using his mutation as a weapon to gain popularity, poking fun at those lower on the totem pole than he was, having been a weedy, nerdy kid before his mutation had given him power.

During that time, and despite their first meeting, as well as the unfortunate incident with the fire, Julia and Pietro had developed an unlikely friendship. Julia was fairly certain it was due to the fact that he didn't know Bryce and Emelia were awful to her, using their powers when his back was turned or when they passed her in the corridor. She knew it was bad, she knew that the pain and fear they caused her was damaging and there was something seriously wrong with her for letting it continue, but Pietro was her only friend her age and as it was, the other students all had pretty compelling blackmail if she was to ever tell him.

The two were in the parlour, it was around three in the morning and Julia was curled up, when Pietro appeared with a gust of wind and flopped down onto the sofa, both of them barely watching the television. Pietro wasn't zipping about at his normal pace, which Julia took to mean that he was tired, as was she, though he still talked at a million miles an hour.

"I thought -" Pietro was cut short by Julia's snort of laughter from the sofa beside him. She had managed to perfect her timing with him, no matter the speed of his dialogue.

"Don't strain yourself." She muttered. Pietro rolled his eyes at her and turned to lean against the shield as he continued to talk. He rested his arms behind his head and shifted to become more comfortable.

"- that the Professor needed someone's permission to read someone's mind, yet he always seems to know what you think." Julia tensed and her shield shoved Pietro over about half a foot, to which he grunted in discomfort.

"Sorry, did I hit a nerve? Didn't mean to… Well, maybe a little. What's up with it, anyway?" He asked, waiting patiently (for once) for her shield to snap back and get himself comfortable once more.

"I could injure you, you sure you want to lie against that -" Julia knew it was coming before the cough from Peter, no matter how good her timing was, his was always better.

"Avoidance gives me hives." He told her, his voice whiney, his syllables drawn out, she supposed that he must have gone to some effort then. Julia chuckled, relaxing once more and drawing in a deep breath. Pietro could tell she was tense, the shield was humming beneath him, almost as if she was shaking with nerves.

"I asked him to." She said simply. There was silence and Julia could tell that Pietro wanted more of an explanation. "A lot of things have happened in my life, not a lot of them good. If I start to remember, he helps me, if she's feeling overwhelmed, he's welcome to talk to me in my mind, if he's bored… eh, you get the picture." She shrugged and Pietro nodded. "I mean, I've asked him to stop looking in, recently; working through some stuff on my own."

"So it's a coping mechanism?" He asked, twisting in his seat at lightning speeds to lean his side into her shield. She liked having him around, no matter what the others did to her, it always seemed like a fair trade off.

"Pretty much." She shrugged, careful not to jostle her friend as he was finally settling down. Because he was that, he was her friend. She had to keep reminding herself that.

"So you're… not coping?" He asked, slowly, well, slowly for him. Which was basically speaking like any other person, really. His question struck a chord, but not one that made her shield do little more than knock him slightly. She couldn't very well have Charles knowing what the others were putting her through, if he found out, he's punish them for certain and Julia knew they'd tell Pietro what had happened to her.

"Working through stuff. Want privacy." She told him, her eyelids drooping.

Pietro moved off of her shield as she shuffled herself to a more comfortable position. He narrowed his eyes at her, her shield's waver was an obvious tipoff that it was a lie and they both knew it.

"Hives, Barricade." He told her, his tone insistent as he leaned his back against her shield once more. Julia narrowed her eyes at the annoying nickname that he stuck to her and hadn't let go, but she let it slide, yet again. She actually didn't hate it, when she thought about it, it was pretty sweet that she even had a nickname.

"I'm not avoiding it, I just won't respond to it." She told him, sending him a sleepy smile as he rolled his eyes.

"That's not healthy." He told her. With a yawn, Julia rests her head on her arms, her eyes fluttering closed.

"Neither is breaking into the Pentagon. Tell me about that again." She whispered, her voice barely audible. Pietro had to hand it to her, it was a skilful dodge of the question, pandering to his bad-boy ego and a segue into a different topic where he could take over. She was a pro. He felt himself really getting into the story, explaining in great detail how he sped past the guards with Magneto in tow, when suddenly he was falling.


	3. Chapter 3

Pietro was definitely lying on top of someone, he gathered. He didn't know why he hadn't gotten up, or why he had allowed himself to fall in the first place, but now he was lying on top of someone. Actually, he knew the reason, as that was because he was lying on top of Julia, who, until just a moment ago, had been supporting him with her shield.

"Did I break the Barricade?" He whispered to himself, eyes wide. Within a second, he was crouching in front of her, looking at her face. "How is she still sleeping? Is she a phaser? Does it only happen on the full moon? Is it the full moon? I'll call you Ghost Barricade." Pietro grinned to himself, what a cool name, before getting a icy pole and eating it in the parlour to consider the situation. With the frozen flavouring gone within less than a minute, only the stick remaining, Pietro leaned into Julia's face, freaked out by how close he could actually get. He went to poke her cheek with his index finger, only for it to stop short around an inch from her face. Even when she was asleep she had walls up, he thought to himself. Considering the stick in his hand for less than a second, he reached out, tapping her swiftly in the cheek, a pink spot appearing where the stick had just been.

"Barricade! Barricade! Look, its me! Look!" He grabbed the shield around her shoulders, trying and failing to shake her slightly. Julia made a noise of distress in the back of her throat and Pietro could feel the uneasy vibrations of her shield beneath his fingers. But he was close than anyone had been in years now, almost grabbing her shoulders, being close enough to touch, to hug (she had once admitted to him that the last person she had been in contact with was her mother, over five years ago, and she missed human contact more than she could bare sometimes), and he wasn't going to pass that up without her knowing about it.

"Julia!" Pietro's whining voice seemed to resonate within the brunette's subconscious as she mumbled out a small sentence.

"I didn't mean to hurt you." She groaned, wrapping her arms around herself. This didn't deter Pietro, who simply stored away the information in the back of his head. He let out an exaggerated, but still very fast, sigh.

"You're so useless sometimes, Barricade, you can't wake up when something cool's actually happening." He groaned, sitting down on the ground in front of the sofa, leaning back to rest his head on her calf. There was a moment of silence before he could hear her shallow, gasping breathes, the rumblr of her shield behind him and as he turned he saw the unbridled fear in her eyes as she stared at him, but it wasn't her, she was trapped in a nightmare, seeing someone who wasn't there, someone who made her terrified. Then, her mouth opened and a scream that would have woken the house ripped from her lungs, accompanied by the grenade-like explosion of her shield, sending Pietro flying, smashing into the opposite wall with a sickly crack. Silence that is only broken by Julia's frightened gasp is what coats the room for the next minute as she stares in shock where Pietro is crumped on the ground, unmoving.

"No!" She blurts it out, her voice strained and scared as she cries the word over and over, not daring to get closer to him for fear of hurting him with her shield. "Please be all right." She gasped out between sobs, before looking around herself wildly. "Somebody! Anybody! Please!" Her voice rose to a shrill screech and she could already hear the rumble of footsteps. It was followed by a slower pacing of footsteps scattering back to where they came from. Only one person came to check what was wrong, not that Julia minded in hindsight, she really didn't need the rest of the school seeing her breakdown.

"Jules? Julia, what's wrong?" She heard Alex's call from the top of the stairs, voice alert despite his spikey bed-head and track-pants-singlet pyjama combination.

"A-again… It happened again." She whispered, sure she looked a mess, arms wrapped around herself, hair messy, pyjamas skewed with panic and tear-stained cheeks. Alex's eyes were full of pity as he descended the steps slowly.

"Is everything all right?" Hank's voice was sharp, as it normally was, peering over the edge of the bannister to where Alex was approaching Julia slowly. She had buried her face into the pillows beside herself, muffling her sobs as they wracked her body, making her ache with worry and loneliness. "Julia, is everything OK?" Hank asked, softly, slowly, seeing the crumpled form of Pietro and Alex's sustained approach.

"It happened again." Alex said, before making a grunt of frustration, his hands pressed to her shield which was slowly growing in as she continued to cry. "You need to calm down. You could hurt a lot of people." He told her seriously as the shield began to expand rapidly. It froze in place and Alex could feel the vibrations beneath his fingers until it suddenly disappeared and Julia was gasping for breath, trying her hardest to keep her emotions under her control. "I'll get Speedy Gonzales over here, you comfort Jules." At Hank's affirming nod, Alex's swift strides took him over to Pietro, lifting him up and carrying him to the sick ward.

"Julia-" Hank put his hand out, testing to see if there was a shield; where there wasn't one seconds before, he could feel the edge of it pressing back against his palm.

"Stay away from me." She told him, her voice as level as she could make it, eyes wide and fearful at her own potential. The shield gave him a slight nudge and he stumbled back. She wasn't looking at him, she was staring straight ahead, her lips in a thin line, knees pressed to her chest, nails digging into her calves where Hank could see a thin line of blood ooze its way down her leg.

"It… um… its not your fault." He told her, quietly. Her sharp gaze turned to him, the shield rumbling ominously.

"Then whose fault is it?" She didn't wait for a response. "I need to be a better mutant. Have to be. It will keep happening. I'm a defensive mutant… was, anyway. This isn't defence, its idiocy. I shouldn't have been a mutant, I'm not any good at… anything." Her eyes glazed over as she turned away, her gaze fixed on some point in front of her that had captivated her attention not too long ago. The shield slipped from beneath Hank's grasp like a wounded dog, leaving his to catch it as it slowly detracted. He noted where it usually stopped, but it kept going, shrinking and moulding as it got closer to the little mutant.

"Julia…" He muttered, "You're not meant to be a perfect mutant." He marvelled at his own ability to comfort the distraught teen _(his brain noted that the last time he had talked with someone like this - different situation entirely - was the night Raven rejected the cure, over a decade ago_). He and Charles had shared a falling down boarding school for the better part of a decade and the closest they got to comfort was Charles's teary-eyed, drug-induced confessions starring Erik as the bad-guy or the good guy depending on his state of mind, and Raven - always Raven - as the lost little lamb. Charles never really got over losing her. "Pietro's going to be fine and you'll get stronger… I mean, growing stronger is easier said than done but -"

"Thank you." Julia's quiet thanks interrupted Hank's spiel, and he noted how tired she sounded. The shield snapped back into its usual place, knocking Hank back a foot.

"Ah, well, no worries." Hank said, a slight smile on his face, which faltered, "Are you OK?" He asked, tentatively.

Julia nodded and yawned, her movements much more natural and flowing as she loosened her grip on her legs, though some of the tension in her body remained. "Just focusing." He told him. Seeing his frown, she let out a sheepish grin, "Alex once told me that true focus lies between rage and serenity." Hank had heard that saying before and he also knew Alex wasn't quiet so elegant in his speech.

"Charles said that…" Hank told her, his words slow as he tried to pinpoint the circumstances that they had been said. Julia snorted with laughter.

"That makes more sense." She told him, but she scowled quickly as he followed it with:

"… to Magneto." Because none of the original group called Magneto _'Erik'_ anymore; it was too personal and too nice for all he had torn apart their small family they managed to find, despite the fact that much of that was attributed to Shaw. To Alex, he was '_metal-dick',_ the one who sucked the happiness from the school and its Professor. To Hank, he was simply _'Magneto',_ Raven's cute codename falling like poison from his lips. To Charles '_Old Friend'_ did well enough, or even, simply '_him_' and Hank knew who he was talking about. 'Erik' was too nice for him.

Julia's face had soured considerably and she wrinkled her nose, but suddenly, in her haste to remove the image of herself in a metal helmet, the words, "I should go to Pietro," blurted through her lips and she slapped a hand over her traitorous mouth. _No! Bad, Julia. You hurt him! Stay away!_

"That, that's not a bad idea. If it would alleviate your doubts, I see no reason in completely isolating him." Hank, in rumpled bed clothes and skewed glasses, nodded his head towards the wing of the mansion where Alex had disappeared down. "If its happening again-" He paused as Julia's muscles tensed and her shield knocked him unceremoniously, "I would like to know what happened from his perspective. If you don't mind, I'll ask you a few questions too." Julia made a noise of protest, whether it was to the prospect of questions or to the fact that Hank had begun moving, but she stood and followed him. "After you've had a sleep, of course." Hank assures her, his eyes flicking to the clock which read three thirty.

"Thanks." Julia mumbled, rubbing her tired eyes, eager to curl up into one of the squashy, comfortable chairs in the sick ward that Xavier had everywhere in this mansion.


	4. Chapter 4

"Oh, gosh, Pietro, can you hear me?" A light, feminine voice filled Pietro's ears, a dull ringing echoing through his head and a dull ache simply everywhere, vibrating through his bones, making his ribs feel as though someone was trying to pry them from his skeleton. Pietro wiggled his fingers as much as he could, pressing against the squishy mattress he was lying on. Someone was sitting next to him, hands resting on his forearms, which jittered as he groaned in recognition. "What happened? Who did this?" She asked, fuelled by his response.

"Em?" He asked, sluggishly, his brain turning over the gears in his head. Cracking his eyes open, he saw her blonde, curly hair first, her worried expression second. He laughed, the sound raw in his throat and Emelia broke out into a relieved grin.

"I was visiting some friends in a nearby city for the weekend, Bryce told me you were in the sick ward this morning. Who did this to you?" Emelia said, running a hand through his messy, silver hair. Pietro closed his eyes, willing the event to come back into his mind. It hit him like a grenade, the scream, the eyes, the shield - he had been close enough to poke her, to see the flush of her cheeks.

"Barricade." He said, simply. He felt Emelia freeze on his arm and watched her face turn to bitter snarl. There was a brief moment of silence before Emelia returned to normal.

"She's a freak. If she keeps injuring people, she'll be shipped off for sure." She told Pietro, her eyes softening as she smiled at him, before punching his arm lightly. "Its weird seeing you move so slowly." She smirked slightly, but Pietro was lost in his own world of thought.

"Who else has she hurt, Professor X would have told me. She- what did she do?" He blanched, his dark eyes wide as she struggles to prop himself up on his elbows. "Em," his eyebrows knitted as a frown crossed his blonde friend's face, "what'd she do?" His Emelia, for once, looked reluctant to divulge someone else's secret to him. He knew both Em and Bryce weren't the biggest fans of Julia, but he never really thought about it, they always seemed to act the same around Julia as the did everyone else. _What had Julia done to make these guys hesitate to gossip?_

"I can't tell you." Emelia finally admitted, bitting her lip to keep from talking. Pietro snorted and Emelia rolled her eyes, "Look, _I_ can't tell you, but she can. When you're better, go ask her." Pietro seemed to take it as a personal challenge, zipping out of the bed and standing beside Emelia within a second, before folding over on himself, clutching his ribs.

"What… the hell?" He hissed between breaths.

"You broke two ribs and got a concussion. The healer's fixed your ribs and skull but you're still gonna feel like you've been hit by a truck." Emelia chuckled, resting a hand on the back of his head.

Sleep./Go to sleep./Bed, Pietro./You need to rest./You're sore./Recuperate./Everything can wait./Sleep.

The voices in his head were warm an comforting, stronger than when he usually heard them, and he turned to Emelia. "You think you're pretty funny, huh?" A grin on his lips as he sped from her grip and curled up on the bed once more. Emelia shrugged.

"It worked didn't it? Anyway, its always stronger if I'm touching the person." She shrugged. She turned, walking to the door as Pietro grinned at her and her explanation, but she hesitated, "Ask her about her mother." She said, seriously, an emotion she didn't display often. Pietro nodded at her, his smile fading, but still there as she left. Hank peered through the doorway, bright smile on his face.

"Ah, you're awake. That's good. Are you OK?" He asked Pietro, who shrugged, still curled up on his side.

"Been better, been worse." He told Hank. "Hey, how's Barricade? She seemed terrified. Did I terrify her?" He asked, his sentences speeding up as he began to forget about the pain in his ribs. Hank ducked his head, looking at the clipboard in front of him.

"Julia's fine. She spent your first night here with you. She's back every day." Hank cleared his throat once more, his eyes going serious (but when was he not serious, really, this guy must be only 25 and here he was like an old man). "I need to ask you a few questions." He told Pietro.

"And here I was having such a nice day." Pietro fired off, but sat up in record time. Hank sat beside him, not unnerved by the display of mutation.

"Can you tell me what happened to yourself and Julia?"

"Why, what happened to Barricade?" His eyes were sharp and his voice was quick. "Did she disappear? Can she do that now?" He asked. Hank snorted, a grin on his lips, before he schooled his expression into what he liked to call his 'research face'. Pietro watched for a minute, before sighing and rolling his eyes. "We talked, nothing scandalous." He caught Hank's exasperated sigh before continuing, "And she fell asleep. Her shield retracted - I know, because he was holding me up, then I was laying on her. Well," He rocked his hand side to side, "sort of, I still couldn't touch her skin, but like… I poked her with a stick."

"Your first instinct was to poke her with a stick?" Pietro could heard the exasperation in Hank's voice, despite the fact that the teacher's head didn't raise from where it was bent over his clip board.

"No, my first instinct was to eat. So I did. Then, with the popsicle stick." He reached out, a movement that he would call _agonizingly slowly_ but most normal people would still think was faster than average, as he pressed his index finger to Hank's cheek. "I sat by her, then felt her shield rumble beneath me and - Bam!" The volume of his shout made Hank jump, but Pietro just shrugged, "I get acquainted with the wall."

Hank is quiet for the moment that then stretches between them. "Is there anything else?" He asked, his eyes lifting slowly to look at the sliver-haired teen before him. Pietro thinks, it takes him less than a second because that's just how he is, and nods, quickly, a jerky movement of his head.

"She told me, well," he ducked his head and scratched the back of his neck, "she was asleep at the time," clearing his throat, he looked back up, "_'I didn't mean to hurt you'_ and when she woke up, its like she saw someone else, someone terrifying. I'm not terrifying." He told Hank seriously. "Nothing about me is remotely terrifying." Hank let out a small grin, because next to Charles' bi-weekly melt-downs, a teenaged boy with image issues.

"You're not terrifying. Most of the time." Hank conceded, and Pietro grinned, pleased with himself. "You should go see Julia, she's in her room, probably painting. Mind the fumes." Hank gripped his clipboard, standing abruptly and leaving the room. Pietro waited a minute, Hank was still down the hall and he didn't want to seem too eager, didn't want to bowl the guy over or anything on his way to see Julia.


	5. Chapter 5

He knocked, because it was polite and he wasn't sure how Julia was going to react, but that was all the curtesy he would pay because despite everything, he was still Pietro. He had never been in her room, and didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't Julia in a tank top and daisy dukes mixing paint in next to what seemed to be a mural on the side of her room. She looked up, briefly, confusion and anger melting into relief, when what could possibly be a tear began to form in her eye, but she brushed it away quickly, looking back down at her paint. Hank was right about the fumes, paint glistened on the wall and the smell was almost overpowering, but Julia could stand it, so could he.

"You're Ok." She said, it wasn't a question, it was a dull question, if any. It held little emotion, but Pietro, as he lounged on her neatly made, pale peach duvet, didn't say anything about it, if he noticed anything.

"Yeah, I was surprised you weren't down there, begging my forgiveness, feeding me grapes, fanning me with a leaf. Regular friend stuff." The smirk that lit up his face was _so very real _and _so very him. _Julia hardly paused at his words, dipping her paintbrush in the paint she had just mixed, drawing a large circle with pale violet paint onto the white wall. Pietro's eyes were drawn to her paintings and his eyebrows shot high; he realised he could see her whole life, her thoughts almost, splayed out onto the wall before him, which would be funny if it wasn't true. He saw a cramped figure in the middle of the circle she was painting, curly brown hair messy and covering its features, arms wrapped around itself, three figures were outside of the circle, a small, red splotch, reaching up, as if to grasp onto the figure in the circle, another red figure, larger and looming over the first red figure, ignoring the circle and its occupant. A final, silver figure, separate from the others, lounged against the side of the circle. There were others, two blue figures next to the silver one, giving off a black aura that looked absolutely toxic and three people (one in a wheelchair) all in sunshine yellow, seeming to be watching the whole set of events.

"So what's with your mom?" Pietro asked, quickly, hoping for offhanded, but he could see Julia freeze, the muscles of her back tense and feel the air become thick with apprehension. "It can't be that bad, I probably won't run you out of town." He smirked, to which Julia scoffed, a chink forming in the armour she had seemed to develop.

"When one is run out of town, it is rarely by choice." She told him, her face turned away, so he couldn't read her emotions. Pietro snorted with laughter and shook his head.

"Yeah, probably not." He conceded. He turned to face Julia, who was watching him, instead of painting, paintbrush stirring absentmindedly. She was silent for a moment, something which Pietro rolled his eyes at, she liked dragging things out around him, some times.

"I didn't think you were one for backstories." She quirked an eyebrow at him, her earlier, cold demeanour forgotten.

"I'm not asking for a backstory." He said, shrugging. It took Julia less than a second later to spit out the words that seemed to be on the tip of her tongue.

"My dad was a mutant, he could cast shields to protect more than himself, the anti-mutant league in our backwater town killed him. I can't remember him. Mom… S-She's dead." Her hand stilled from where it was stirring. Her eyes flicked to the red, splotchy figures on the wall, and her mouth tightened into a hard line. Pietro stopped short, the word 'sorry' on the tip of his tongue. He bit it back, hating the sound of the word whenever he told someone about his less-than-around dad. "I was twelve." Was all she added.

"I've never known my dad." Pietro supplied, with his usual aura of carelessness, but it seems to work as Julia snorts with laughter and goes back to painting, commenting off-handedly.

"I appreciate the sentiment." She finishes the circle with a flourish, before brushing off her hands on her shirt. "You're as subtle as a blimp." She told him.

"I try.' Pietro shrugged. There was a call from outside and Julia turns abruptly.

"You guys coming?" Its Scott Summers, Alex's little brother, a bit more annoying, but Pietro really can't talk. He's wearing his leather jacket and plain t-shirt with dark jeans, very ordinary compared to Pietro, but the chiselled jaw and red-tinted glasses made him suitably _cool. _Julia looked up at him, a funny look on her face.

"Hey, eye-beams-of-doom." Pietro was nudging shoulders with Scott who rolled his eyes behind his red aviators. There was a smile there, however as the two of them fist bumped.

"Speedy Gonzales." Scott said, to which Pietro choked on his breath, getting a glass of water for himself and speeding back within a few moments.

"Going where?" Pietro asked, after taking a long sip of the cool liquid. Scott frowned, looking over at Julia, who watched the ground, suddenly closed off once more.

"It's the first Saturday of the month, Xavier lets some of the older students go out for the night." There was a pause followed by a bitter smile, "Emelia really wants you to go." She told Pietro. Scott almost did a double take, as if hearing her voice linked some sort of internal dots.

"How do you know that?" Pietro asked, casually leaning against Julia's shield. If he startled her, he didn't show it. Julia looked up at him and tapped her temple. "Oh, I thought Em didn't broadcast in the minds of friends - Oh." Pietro stopped his train of thought in its tracks, looking awkwardly at the ground. "Why would she broadcast to you?"

"I'm usually the closest to you, it was the safest bet." Something about Julia's voice made him suspect she wasn't telling the whole truth, but he didn't push the matter, simply turned to Scott.

"Where are we going? How do we get there? Is there room for Barricade?" He asked in rapid succession. Scott thought for a moment, before nodding slightly.

"Most of us teleport there, Grace is a teleporter, but my brother and Hank usually drive. They have this weird thing where they grumble about falling out of the sky over international waters whenever anyone offers." Scott shrugged, nonchalantly, "They're weird about teleporters." His eyes flick to where Julia was still kneeling on the ground, "Julia, she doesn't usually go."

Pietro turns back to Julia, who shrugs. He lets out a groan of frustration. "You are literally the most boring person ever." He told her. Julia scowled at him, jumping to her feet and advancing on Pietro, as Scott watched from the doorway in wonder as Pietro was squished into the corner by some invisible force, Julia standing still.

"Pietro Maximoff, you know that's not true. I choose not to go because I don't know what effect alcohol will have on my mutation and I would like to _not _repeat last Friday's events." Her voice was stony but changed to sickly sweet, and Scott saw Pietro's whine as Julia stretched out her arm, the invisible force pressing into Pietro's cheek. "How are your ribs?" She asked. She seemed to snap out of it quick, however, when Pietro didn't answer, her shield dropping him. She turned to Scott, her face perfectly calm. "Could you tell Hank and Alex that I'll be ready in ten minutes?"

Scott was frozen for a moment, before Pietro was by his side and he was nodding. "Have we met before? I know your voice…" Voice wasn't the right word, terrified, pleading screams for help would be the right word, but Scott couldn't just _say _that.

"We've been at the same school for almost a year now." Julia sighed, leaning her weight on one hip, smiling.

"Yeah, but we've never really talked." Scott told her, Julia saw something in him, like an old and foggy memory rising to the surface… That wasn't it, it was like the original memory had been written over with a new one and he was part of the original. But he was there, somewhere…

"We should." She said, her voice soft. Pietro groaned with boredom, tapping his foot at lightening speeds. Scott laughed, tugging Pietro away as Julia shut the door behind them.


End file.
